Friday, 16 October 2015

I walked with God to New Cross Rail Station, London.

I met God in London and we talked as He walked me to New Cross Rail Station. My first question
was, "God I want to understand you."
He smiled and said, "Fine, go ahead."
"But I don't God. You're
incomprehensible." There was a palpable silence from the Creator. The
pace then slowed a little and God asked, "Have you stopped understanding me?"

I told him that I have not but it is
frustrating to understand someone who is neither here nor there, neither fair
nor unfair, neither provable nor un-provable. I told God that he is too encrypted,
too surreptitious, too-behind-the-scenes. He is in other words an enigma
wrapped in a mystery, triple-locked in a safe, thrown into a black-hole and
hidden in a thousand dimensions.

God immediately understood what I
meant – he’s God after all - and
said, "But didn't you want to
understand me?" I nodded and replied, "Yes, yes. I want to but I simply can't." God then asked me
whether I am thinking of giving up. And I said I have often reached the end of
my patience because I only faced a dead-end, a theological cul-de-sac.

"Son," God said. "If
you want to understand me, you need to continue this quest." "You mean I need to continue the journey even
when I have reached the end of my road?" I said. God shook his head
and said, "Your journey has yet to
begin. It seems like you have come to your own conclusions about me even before
gaining any mileage."

"You mean there is more to you to discover? But I have read the Bible,
studied the scriptures, attended church services, and committed to a few
ministries during the days of my youth, and I realized after some time that you
are still the same yesterday and today and tomorrow...that is, you are
unpredictable, most times inconsistent, if not contradictory, and you appeared
to me to be a fence-sitter on some life-and-death matters."

At this time, I knew I was out of
line. I knew I was more than disrespectful but it all came out quite
unconsciously, spontaneously - more like pent-up frustration. A fumbling catharsis of sort. I apologized
to God as we looked out for oncoming cars and crossed the road towards the rail
station.

"Son, you have understood me reasonably well thus far…as is humanly
possible," God said. I was wide-eyed and was somehow disarmed by that
line: "What do you mean God? I am
expressing my lack of faith in you." “No son," God said. "You
are just discovering how I work. But there’s a long way to go from here."

At this time, I can't say that I
understand what God wanted me to understand about him. He was speaking in
riddles again and that's the part that confounded me most. "God, let me get this off my pneumonic chest. Pardon me please. Your
nature is perplexing. Your love is puzzling. Your promises fell short. Your
power is self-constraining. Your coming doesn't seem like it's happening. And
your silence is deafening. How does all that count as understanding?"

By this time, we had been walking for
the last 20 minutes and the train station was just 100 meters away. God paused
in his track for a while and said, "Son,
you will always learn new things about me. Your life is a journey of discovery
and this journey is not going to be easy. There will be dead-ends, high walls,
deep schisms, meandering valleys and bottomless pits. They are there to deepen
your quest and make the journey worthy of your time and curiosity. I will
always be ahead of you in space, time, knowledge and mystery. You know that
right? Your understanding of me will always be limited. You cannot fully
understand me. Neither can you pigeon-hole me. You may attempt to make
ambitious assumptions about me but they will not come close to who I really am
and what my plans for you are. My truth will remain paradoxical just as my
love, grace and sacrifices will remain unfathomable. Do you understand all
that? Can you accept all that?"

I was trying hard to see the point of
all that seemingly pointless merry-go-round explanation from the divine
authorship. "So, am I to give up
knowing you? Is this going to be a futile search for the one discovery that
means everything to a believer?" God paused again and said, "Son, what if I tell you that there is no way
you can hope to understand fully how I run this universe or the laws involved
in making life and processing death?" I hesitated for a while and blurted
out, "Is this a cop out? Are you
avoiding the issue?" God smiled: "I will always be beyond your most penetrating epistemological quest to
probe and know me. You’re an image of me remember? Not the whole picture…yet."

"So ignorance is bliss?" I muttered, disgruntled. "Not bliss son,” came the quick rejoinder. “It
is naive to expect any bliss in this world groaning for answers. The only true
meaning in this world is your persistent quest to know me. You give that up,
you give up meaning altogether." Now it was my turn to give pause. "But I will never fully know you right?So what's the point? Why go further? Just to
be blissful in my infinite ignorance?"

God saw that we had arrived at the
train station and he turned to me, "This
is your stop. Take care son." I was ruffled, annoyed even. "God, is this how we end this theological
cliffhanger...leaving me still hanging?" He then gave me a handwritten
note and put it in my pocket, whispering, "For the time being, this will do." I then rummaged my pocket
and pulled out the piece of note and lifted my head to look for God. He was
gone, just like a magician disappearing behind a puff of white smoke.

I quickly opened the note and read
it:-

"Nice talking to you, son. You seek to know me but what comes after
that. Like a textbook or a course, you sign up for it, study it, master it and
it is discarded. I am not an academic text or a science project or a
self-improvement seminar. I don't come as a well-designed step-by-step-instructions manual. Is knowing me that way your end-goal in life? But if you
seek to have a relationship with me, then knowing me becomes just one of its
means. Knowing me then embodies a variety of meanings. It means experiencing,
surrendering, giving, waiting, caring for those I love, praying in faith,
hoping with persistence, doubting even because you don't take yes for an
answer, pursuing me with passion, sitting down with me to learn, enjoying the
silence, being assured of the silence, being strong amidst the silence,
persevering through your trials, trusting, loving and believing, and in all
that, you will come to know me even more, much more than what you seek when you
first started your journey, that is, just knowing me period. Son, you can know
about me or know with me. You can confine yourself to the things you see or
allow me to gradually open your eyes to the things I see. It’s not just about
knowledge, but faith, hope and love. Knowledge takes you from one point to
another, but faith, hope and love take you from one point and beyond. Never
forget that. For now, take care my son. Love Dad."

4 comments:

'It's not about knowledge, but faith, hope and love. Knowledge takes you from one point to another, but faith, hope and love take you from one point and beyond.' Thanks Michael, this is really insightful and packed with so much wisdom in just two sentences! Hmm, just curious, I've noted that there were numerous posts about your encounters with God in dreams and meetups such as this, are they in forms of visions and real dreams that you had, or just creative literature to illustrate certain truths? Either ways, they are awesome though.